5th Edition Missions and the Necessity of Transports

Typically I do not write in the General Debate forum, but a recent battle fielding my Tyranids has brought this issue to the fore. In one sentence or less, in order to win a game of Warhammer 40,000 (especially if fielding a close combat force) you must take transports. Allow me to explain my theory:

In 4th Edition we were quite used to deploying up to 12" in, or taking up entire table quarters. This gave armies the ability to start somewhat close to their foe, and in many cases get the beloved "turn two assault". 5th Edition has nerfed this ability quite a bit. While the good old "deploy 12" in" mission still is in use, 67% of the time you must use deployment that is very favourable to shooting armies.

Table Quarters: It's a bit different these days, you've got to deploy 6" away from the table center. The necessity of transports really shone for me in this one as I played Tyranids, the transportless race, as an army of bugs footslogged to the opposite corner of the table to try and claim the enemy objective which was held by shooting-oriented space marines. A 2'x3' table quarter is 43" from corner to corner, add on the 6" bubble in the center of the table that you need to deploy outside of and your models will need to traverse over four feet of table, not to mention terrain. Assuming that your models are running the entire time, an average of 9.5" per turn, it'll take you 5 turns to traverse this space at a normal model's pace plus running. This doesn't factor intervening terrain, difficult terrain checks, falling back, becoming pinned, getting locked in an assault, having to fight through a speedbump squad, or getting hit by a Lash of Submission. In the case that you're fielding entirely footslogging infantry designed for close combat, they won't be getting their hits in until turn four at the earliest, and games end 33% of the time on turn 5. Whilst facing a shooting army, your forward units will most likely be being destroyed as your rear units come to take their place. In the case of Kill Points or the one-objective-per-force missions, a shooting army will have a dogged advantage over a close combat force.

I could continue to gripe about that situation, but I think I've conveyed the majority of my points there, so now we'll move on to Dawn of War. Each force gets to deploy up to half way onto the table (long table edges) which sounds like it would be absolutely fabulous for a close combat force, until you realize that you only get to deploy one HQ and two TROOPS, and that the rest of your army will walk onto the rear board edge...

I'll finish this later, I've been summoned for food. Feel free to discuss in my absence.

My gaming group's new motto: That army you're using is overpowered because it hurts my guys, codex is broken and needs a rewrite.

I don't know off the top of my head whether you can place the objective in the capture the flag style mission within 12" of a table edge. In standard objective missions, you cannot, so that's relevant. In kill point missions it's sort of irrelevant.

I play Tyranid, so forgive me for disagreeing but I'm doing it from a similar viewpoint.

1) Shooting is an important element of 40k, and in my opinion a critical element of a Tyranid force ... while it's "fun" to have an all-CC army, it's not necessarily competitive, so that's influencing your situation. That being said, Tyranid are excellent in close combat without CC upgrades, so you hardly *need* to take CC upgrades / eschew shooting upgrades. Either way, shooting being an important part of the game, it needs to have relevance, and the best relevance of RANGED weapons is being able to maintain your range from an opponent.

2) More to the point, you're exaggerating the distance to travel in objective-based misions as stated. You can deploy right up against the middle-spaced deployment bubble. If your math is correct on the 43" issue, you can deploy 6" from his 43", so 49" from his very back corner ... a place he's rarely going to have the objective sitting at (if ever). Coupled w/ the ability to use assault moves and massacres to move much more quickly once you contact some of his force, this isn't really an insurmountable distance. The distance to travel in Dawn of War missions is even smaller, and frankly w/ the ability to field warp field tyrants and tyrant guarded tyrants, you should be able to put down a TON of troops and a very nice HQ in missions where Dawn of War and a back-board objective are both in play. It's not doom and gloom, honestly. That all being said, Dawn of War still puts you 42" after turn one movement away even if you don't run / fleet, and even if their objective is on the very back portion of the board.

Look, no we don't have transports, but we have a lot of options for metric pewptons of speed (ravener/hormagaunt charges, flying warriors/tyrants/etc., running big bugs, fleeting little bugs, etc.).

Give some more thought to your army composition, give some thought to your tactical approach to deployment. Take it from someone who didn't even materially alter his list from 4th and is still winning these games that you should try a lil harder.

If an opponent builds an army around max range and max shooty, where keeping you away is paramount, he should have some abilities to do so. That doesn't mean you don't have counter-acting abilities to get at him regardless, and you certainly do. You may not have transports, but with a proliferation of wings and fleets and 12" charges, Tyranid are still one of the fastest armies in the game, especially in an assault sense, and trumped really only by Orks and Eldar. For *any* close grips army, Dawn of War and Quarters can nerf their ability to maneuver, but honestly it's not going to come to play in many missions if you build your list right and apply it right.

I have to say, I agree with iLonginus - transports really do help. As a Guard player, I occasionally end up fighting Tyranids and I find transports extremely helpful.

When facing Tyranids, it's handy to use a Conscript Platoon spread right across the table and with a Commissar as a speed bump. While the bugs munch my gunbabies I use ordnance to blast anything big behind the lines and then whats left of the Gaunts, etc. get ripped apart by massed las gun fire. I must admit - while the new rules for kill points have been very unfair on the Guard, objective grabs have become much more dificult for the Tyranids.

On the bright side, it's *strongly rumoured* that the problem of kill points will be solved in the next Guard codex - so imagine the CC nightmares you Tyranid players are gonna get in your next codex release!

I'll also have to disagree on the matter of 5th favoring shooting. Given how much more brutal CC is in 5th shooting armies need a little extra room to give them a decent amount of shooting.

And 'Nids have things like infiltrating Core troops with rending that can flank march and be in combat without ever being shot at. Knowing that things like that are lurking about tends to keep shooty armies away from board edges which means they usually end up closer to you.

A lot of Tyranids can get scout which confers the outflank move. In the corner to corner setup outflanking can be down right disgusting. You have a 66% chance to end up on the side you want.

I think what 5th Edition has done for 40k is make it a lot more tactic oriented. Yeah the armies have become easier to build, but the tactics area is where 5th Edition is excelling at. Every game can just be so different even when using the exact same armies against each other.

Just take a moment to step back and really put more thought into your tactics.
For 40k now you just can't run stuff at people and hope to win like I've seen so many Nids players do. You have to plan A through Z if you want to make it off the battlefield alive.